Archives for October 2010

Disclosure: This could be a sponsored post or contain affiliate links (which means I earn a percentage of the sale), but all opinions are strictly my own.

Here’s a quick little number that you can totally pull out of your pantry {especially if you’ve already bought your Halloween candy} and your friends will marvel about your superstar treats. Whenever we go to a gathering, I am generally asked to bring a dessert — I guess that’s all I’m good for, huh? I never get asked to bring a main dish — I like treats, ok? Don’t judge me. And because of my own craziness, I try to avoid repeats — so last week I found myself with 2 hours till departure time and still no treat. I dug around my cupboards and came up with Butterfinger Fudge.

You will need:

One pound of chocolate chips {equal to about 3 cups}

One 14 oz. can of sweetened condensed milk

4 tbsp of real butter {1/2 a stick}

One bag of fun size Butterfinger {or any other candy bar you like/have on hand}

To make Butterfinger Fudge:

{1}melt butter, chocolate chips and stir in condensed milk

{2} crush candy bars — I used about 15; you can do more or less

{3} remove from heat, stir in candy

{4} pour into 8 x8 glass dish. Quick tip: criss cross two pieces of parchment paper, leaving ends to overlap sides of dish. This makes it easy to pop the entire square of fudge out and cut into perfect little squares.

CSN has over 200 stores online, so they sell EVERYTHING! They recently sent me a gift certificate to make a purchase from one of their many stores. Well, I made that purchase, but sorry guys I have to keep what I got a secret. Hello it’s a Christmas present! 🙂 I can’t even tell you which store, because I’m afraid that might give it away. However, I do think that my husband needs to take note of the above item, because I needs it! The online store All Coffee Tables.com literally has a coffee table for everyone’s taste and to fit every decor.

Looking for something ultra modern?

How about for storage?

Something totally square?

Yep all can be found at All Coffee Tables.com! Now I know where I’m going to look when I’m ready to shop for my very empty front living room. 🙂

Disclosure: This could be a sponsored post or contain affiliate links (which means I earn a percentage of the sale), but all opinions are strictly my own.

I like to have dinner for my family on the table at dinner time. So I make dinner for them every night – a whole meal, with a main course, with a salad and vegetables on the side and even dessert. NOT (somewhere my husband is laughing). Truth be told, I’m the queen of “it’s 5:30 so what can I wrassle out of the fridge that could pass off as dinner?” Sometimes it’s eggs. Sometimes it’s pancakes. But I do have a few meals in my pocket that I can usually come up with from whatever I have at home, or would require only one or two items a the store. A family favorite is fajitas. And even better — these are the laziest quickest fajitas you’ll find around. You’ll see why I call them the “5-10 Fajitas”:

A bag of pre-cooked and seasoned fajita meat – I buy this at Kroger in the area by the hot dogs and lunch meat

Your first 5 minutes:

turn on your BBQ

prep by tearing 2 large rectangles of tin foil and lay flat on your counter, spray with cooking spray

slice up your veggies lengthwise

toss all your veggies into one tin foil and close it up, envelope-style

bust open that bag of pre-cooked fajita meat and put it in your other tin foil, fold it up envelope-style

And then your 10 minutes:

place both tin foil envelopes onto your BBQ

call a friend, push your kids on the swing, look for ladybugs outside — however you want to kill the next 4 and 1/2 minutes

if you want, turn the envelopes over once or twice in that time

remove from BBQ — somewhere between 7 and 10 minutes is generally all it takes to heat the veggies and meat through (remember you are using pre-cooked meat, so it’s not a safety issue; you are simply re-heating now)

Disclosure: This could be a sponsored post or contain affiliate links (which means I earn a percentage of the sale), but all opinions are strictly my own.

I’m so excited for this next guest posting, because I actually know her personally and she’s awesome! I know that you are going to find her to be just dandy! She crafts, she quilts, she photographs, she blogs… I told you she is awesome! This particular guest posting doesn’t pertain to her quilting, but I LOVE her quilts. In fact she is entered right now in a Halloween quilting contest and you can vote for her fabulous Spooky Wonky Log Cabin HERE. It’s quilt #1 so get voting! 🙂 And here is my friend and former roomie, Kati…

Hi! I’m Kati from the blue chair. Thanks so much to Tara for letting me do a guest post today about my blue chair. Tara and I were roommates in college. I certainly have some good stories, but we’ll stick to refurnishing chairs today.

I have a thing for chairs. I like to get them from Goodwill for around $5 and paint them. It’s become a bit of a problem. My husband even asked me recently to stop. I guess no more Goodwill chairs for a while, but at least I have my favorite chair to use every day while I sew. This is the chair that inspired my blog name—from the blue chair. This was a pretty sad little Goodwill find, but sturdy. He definitely had some potential, but needed a lot of love.

When scouring for chairs I look for a few things—sturdy, solid wood, relatively good condition, and character (you don’t want just a plain old kitchen chair). Sit in it. Wiggle the back. Flip it upside down and make sure those legs are well attached. Once you have your chair, get it ready to paint.

Painting prep:

This guy needed some work, but it wasn’t too bad. I filled the deep scratches with wood filler then sanded the edges a bit to smooth things over. I cleaned it and wiped all surfaces down with an everyday kitchen cleaner. Then I wiped it with a clean, damp cloth.

Replacing the seat:

I removed the original seat by flipping it over and unscrewing it from the bottom. Then I cut a piece of high density foam using the seat base as my template. My foam was 2” which is pretty thick but I sit in this guy while sewing. I wanted it to be comfortable. I used a little hot glue to adhere it to the seat base.

The seat fabric is Tufted Tweets in Grass by Laurie Wisburn. I chose the fabric for the seat cover because I adore it, but it’s quilting weight fabric and not available in décor weight. To strengthen the fabric, I fused it to heavy twill using Ultra Heat and Bond. This made it a bit more difficult to work with than normal décor weight fabric, but it made it durable for long-term use. After getting the fabric ready, I started stapling it on using a craft staple gun. I did the sides first and then the front and back, pulling the fabric as tightly as I could.

Painting:

To paint this guy I used Pacific Sea Teal in gloss by Bear from Home Depot. I chose to brush on the paint rather than spray painting because I was a bit particular about the color and there aren’t a lot of color options in spray paint. I used their Ultra paint with primer in it, making painting one easy step.

Finishing:

After allowing the paint to cure for a couple days, I attached the seat using the original hardware. After a little work, some new paint and fabric, I have a funky new sewing chair that I love!

Painted chairs make a fun accent in any room or a fabulous photography prop. For a super funky look, collect an assortment of chairs and paint them each a different color for your dining room table. My next chair project might be a pink one. My three-year-old has requested a pink chair for the dinner table. I just might indulge her.

Disclosure: This could be a sponsored post or contain affiliate links (which means I earn a percentage of the sale), but all opinions are strictly my own.

The holidays are right around the corner. I’m quite fond of all things festive, so it’s not surprising that I majorly heart holiday cards! I love to send them. I love to receive them. I love to send them. I love to look at them. I love to send them. Can you tell that I really love to send out holiday cards? 🙂 It’s something that I think about throughout the year even! What style we will use this year and where we will get our family photos taken. Speaking of family photos…

My favs are the holiday cards with photos on them, because they just seem so personal. Don’t you think? We are getting some family pictures taken on November 6th which means that I need to get deciding on the style of cards to order from Shutterfly! They are giving me the gift of cards this year and I’m so very grateful for them. What type of cards should I order? Shutterfly just has so many simply dandy options to choose from, so it’s going to be a very difficult decision I think! Here are just a few of my favorites, but remember that there are soooo many dandy options!

Do you want 50 free holiday cards from Shutterfly? Click here to go to Shutterfly for information on how you can get 50 free cards this holiday season, and make sure to select Clever 1000 as the referral source.

This post is part of a series sponsored by Shutterfly. I was selected for this sponsorship by the Clever Girls Collective, which endorses Blog With Integrity, as I do.

Disclosure: This could be a sponsored post or contain affiliate links (which means I earn a percentage of the sale), but all opinions are strictly my own.

Let the birthday song singing commence! 🙂 Yep Dandy Giveaway & More has reached a dandy milestone. We are now one year old! Can you believe it? I can’t either! So let’s party with some really dandy giveaways for this week…

Disclosure: This could be a sponsored post or contain affiliate links (which means I earn a percentage of the sale), but all opinions are strictly my own.

Somedays {um, hello Monday} I wish I could just hook myself up to an I.V. and make it so the caffeine never stops. Little kids can do that to ya, huh? On our way out in the mornings, I sometimes {ok, often} find myself in the Sonic Drive-Thru with no recollection of how I got there — even my two year old recognizes it. So what if I could just whip myself up a soda at home? Hmmmm — well there’s a clever idea!

And there’s tons more flavors — over 30 flavors with just the touch of a button, as easy as making coffee. You can browse all the flavors here, and restocking your supply is easy with 24-hour a day ordering on the SodaStream website or by calling Customer Service. You can use any type of water from home and the soda maker uses no electricity or batteries – simply compressed gas from the carbonator. It’s so easy! With the holidays coming up, we’ll be having tons of friends and family gatherings; it would be so fun to be able to mix up our own soda and seltzer at home. Not a soda drinker? What a fun and unique gift idea — we all have friends and family that would love a soda maker from SodaStream!

Disclosure: This could be a sponsored post or contain affiliate links (which means I earn a percentage of the sale), but all opinions are strictly my own.

I’m so ecstatic that Maddy Moo Creationswanted to celebrate our birthday week with us! After all, I’m all about cute handbags and their’s definitely do not disappoint. I’m already the owner of the most dandy bag from Maddy Moo Creations that is perfect for carrying around my stuff and my son’s stuff. That’s what I need these days. A bag that’s universal. But my Maddy Moobag also looks ADORABLE! I have this one, but with a light blue ribbon:

Seriously love it!

Their handbags are perfect for wearing during the day or to dress up at night. All are uniquely crafted with your (the customers) help! Maddy Moo Creations allows you to select your own style and then the perfect fabric option to reflect that style. When you design your bag you can pick from styles like these:

The winner will receive the 2 different sized bags (Mother/Daughter combo) in green and white polka dot fabric. Both are trimmed in white faux leather and have a wipeable interior. In addition to the red ribbons, Maddy Moo Creationsis also including a white and pink ribbon that can be tied on the handles. Creating multiple looks!

*** This giveaway is open to US entries only ***

There are 5 chances to win. Be sure and leave separate comments for each entry on this posting to enter. **If you qualify for all 5 chances then leave 5 separate comments**

Disclosure: This could be a sponsored post or contain affiliate links (which means I earn a percentage of the sale), but all opinions are strictly my own.

About a month ago I volunteered at this city wide consignment sale. I’ve never done something like this before and had only once before went to such a sale. Well, it was kind of a big deal. Ok it wasn’t just kind of. It WAS a big deal! Like seriously intense. In fact there were lines of women just to get into the sale before it opened. Those ladies were serious about a sale! What kinds of things could be found there? Well, everything was organized on tables by types of toys, etc. There was an entire table just for Bratz dolls and accessories. Which means those must be super popular! By the end of the sale that table was completely empty and sold out. Yep popular! Bratz recently celebrated their 10th Anniversary.

To commemorate their 10th they’ve introduced a whole new line of Anniversary Edition Dolls:

And Party Dolls:

Bratz recently sent me the Party Jade and Party Chloe for this feature. They are both so cute and fun! Like the other Bratz dolls, they are able to be given lots of poses. Each comes complete with 2 outfits, jewelry, handbags, and shoes making them a really great gift to give that’s all in one fashionable looking box!

And…to help celebrate our own birthday Bratz is also giving away the Party Jade to one lucky winner:

So enter to win!

*** This giveaway is open to entries in the U.S. only ***

There are 5 chances to win. Be sure and leave separate comments for each entry on this posting to enter. **If you qualify for all 5 chances then leave 5 separate comments**

Disclosure: This could be a sponsored post or contain affiliate links (which means I earn a percentage of the sale), but all opinions are strictly my own.

We’re almost to Halloween and thankfully everyone here in my house has settled the all-important costume crisis and we’re ready to get our spook on this weekend. With the trick or treating, I’ll be expecting my kids to have a big haul — and they’ll probably use a flourescent pumpkin or maybe even a pillow case (boring!) — me? I’d be pretty happy to stash my treats in this chic handbag from Sophie’s Chic Boutique:

Since Halloween’s just about wrapped up, I feel prepared and an mentally ready to move on. My next task: Christmas cards {well, Christmas card pictures!} and all that business. What should my kids wear?

Seriously how cute is this tie? And if I had (or maybe I’ll borrow one to dress up!) a little girly:

And perhaps even the most important question of all: What should I wear? I bet Sophie’s Chic Boutique can hook me up to! These darling hair accessories aren’t just for little girls are they? I think they add a little fancy, don’t you?